


Quiet

by emotionallyA



Series: The Song of The Abyss - ARCHIVED [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Canon, Comfort/Angst, F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Medical Procedures, Mentions of Violence, Mild Blood, Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Sparring, Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:27:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emotionallyA/pseuds/emotionallyA
Summary: Estinien is given an assignment to train Eorzea's Warrior of Light, a quiet young woman.
Relationships: Warrior of Light/Estinien Wyrmblood
Series: The Song of The Abyss - ARCHIVED [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626862
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the first in my series exploring the relationship between my WoL, Cassiel, and Estinien.
> 
> If you are here for edgelord Estinien, turn back now. This is pretty much Estinien in name and appearance only. It is incredibly self indulgent. 
> 
> The series as a whole is canon adjacent. It mostly follows canon, fudges the timelines a bit, and diverges occasionally. In the case of this work specifically, the DRG quests are not canon and are instead a series of sparring sessions with Ishgard's Azure Dragoon.

“Estinien, I know you don't want to do this--”

“Then why are you asking it of me? Surely there is a better use of my time than training some whelp.” Estinien crossed his arms and scowled. He'd been sure Aymeric was going to give him a mission of actual importance when he'd called him to his office. Not an assignment to train some girl who'd just picked up a lance. 

Aymeric pinched the bridge of his nose and slowly exhaled. “She’s not just some _whelp_ , Estinien. The Eorzeans hold her in very high regard--”

“Then why can’t they train her?”

Aymeric ignored him. “And the Church has taken an interest in her. If they continue to like her, they might be more receptive to the idea of opening the borders.” 

That still didn’t answer Estinien’s question. He opened his mouth to protest but Aymeric cut him off.

“Look, Estinien, I am short on time and patience today. In exchange for _your_ time, I can guarantee you will have no paperwork to do for the duration of the time you are training her.” Lucia started slightly at this, but quickly schooled her expression back to a calculating stare centered directly on Estinien. 

Ah, it was to be like that, was it? Estinien smirked at him. “Oh, well she must be an important person then, if she's getting the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights to grovel so.”

Aymeric ignored the jab, instead moving in front of his desk to stand next to Estinien. “Apparently she's been killing primals like it was nothing. The Church still doesn't want to let her into the city, of course, but they want her trained as a dragoon anyway.” He smiled that dazzling smile of his at Estinien and clapped him on the shoulder. “And that's where you come in, my friend. Who knows,” he tossed over his shoulder as he started to walk out. “You may even like her.” Lucia followed, throwing a small smirk at Estinien as she passed.

“Charming bastard,” Estinien swore under his breath after the door closed behind them. He'd had a feeling he would have no choice in the matter anyway, but Aymeric could have at least given him the decency to pretend he did. The mantle of Azure Dragoon was less of a job and more of a life. He keyed his linkpearl to the correct channel to speak with his old dragoon trainer. “Ser Alberic, I hear a student of yours wants for a better teacher…” 

\--------

The girl was quiet. Alberic had introduced her as the Warrior of Light, listing off her many primal kills. She wore simple leather armor and carried a worn lance. Her hair shifted from blue to green and back as the wind tossed it around. It reminded him of quiet nights in old Coerthan forests, before they had been razed in the Calamity. She watched and listened intently, drinking in her surroundings. More often than not she seemed to scowl, especially at Estinien. Through the first few training sessions, she didn't speak at all. A grunt here or there when Estinien pinned her to the ground, but no words.

He quickly wrote her off as another adventurer who'd end up dying in a dungeon. She had some skill, but not enough, especially with the whispered rumors of stronger primals on the horizon. Estinien lengthened their fights to give her at least some chance. 

By their third meeting, she had gained some strength. She made less mistakes, blocked more of his hits, but she had yet to win a match. Estinien was getting bored. He threw her to the ground again, hearing the air leave her lungs. Still another hour left, judging by the sun's position. He retreated a few paces, as was customary for the start of their spars, and turned back to see her still on the ground. Her chest was rising, so he hadn't killed her. Another moment passed before she started to slowly crawl back to her feet. Estinien yawned into his hand. 

He heard a quiet noise from her but before he could get a good look at her, she was at his throat. She hit him once before he managed to bring his lance up to block her. "Am I that _boring_ to you?" His guard broke. She did have a voice. And she readily took the opening he gave her, using her voice to strip him verbally as she beat the life out of him with his own tricks.

Despite seemingly intent on it, she didn't kill him. Just pinned him to the ground and held his own lance to his throat. It would be a simple task to flip their positions. To gain the upper hand and shove her face in the dirt, again, as he’d done so many times already. But he didn’t. Exhaustion had started to set into his bones and he was, begrudgingly, impressed. He chuckled. “You're going to spare me, oh Warrior of Light?”

Her eyes lit again. She pierced the ground directly next to his head with his lance, using an iron grip on it to support herself as she leaned over him. Her hair dripped over her shoulders. This close, he could clearly see her eyes. Dark blue pools of untouched water. He could drown in them. He just might. “My name is Cassiel.” Clear and strong. Her voice wrapped around him and stole the breath from his lungs.

Despite it being the coldest day of the year, Estinien was suddenly way too hot. From the ground, his eyes tracked Cassiel as she left him his lance and walked away, pausing the briefest of moments to pick up her own. He gradually pulled himself to his feet, aching and wincing at the bruises forming, and watched as Alberic congratulated her and sent her on her way. She glanced back at him, for just a moment. Thank Halone his visor was pulled down, as he was sure his face was already a bright red. Maybe she had some promise after all. 

\------

After that, Cassiel improved remarkably between sessions. She immediately put him in the dirt at their next meeting. “Guess I have to actually pay attention now,” he said, getting back to his feet. He won a smirk for his comment. They traded wins over the next hour. Estinien found bruises staining his skin when he took off his armor that night. 

Another few sessions saw them in a breathless stalemate. She could match him blow for blow and he hadn't landed any hits. A drop of blood rolled down Estinien’s face from a scratch on his cheek. He was tired, it was getting late, and it had started to snow. Cautiously, he moved to stand straight, hanging his lance on his back. “I believe that's a draw, my lady.”

“We'd need to be even to have a draw.” She leveled her lance at him, eyes still sharp. “You haven't landed a single hit yet.” Estinien narrowed his eyes, hidden by the visor. She was really going to make him say it, wasn't she? Her lips curved into a smirk. 

“Very well,” Estinien sighed, shrugging. He deliberately raised a hand to wipe the blood from his cheek. “You win, Cassiel. I'm fucking exhausted.” He bowed grandly, stilling when he heard… laughter? He lifted his head to find Cassiel in a fit, arms crossed over her stomach as she howled. The sound of it made his heart beat painfully.

She calmed enough to gasp out, “Gods, I'm exhausted too. Good match.” She picked up her lance from where she had dropped it. Still giggling and wiping tears from her eyes, she headed to the edge of their makeshift arena, where a very confused Alberic watched. 

Estinien couldn't move, all he could do was watch her. His heart pounded against his chest and he felt just the slightest bit lightheaded. “Fuck me,” he mumbled. “I owe Aymeric a drink.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's par for the course, really," she mused. "If I don't get some kind of injury from you, did I actually see you at all?" 
> 
> -
> 
> Estinien learns just why Cassiel is so quiet.

Alberic’s next quest for Cassiel was fetching some antique dragoon armor that was buried in Daniffen Pass. It was always spun as a test of wills or might or some other such nonsense. In truth, it served primarily as a means to cull the biasts in the area that tended to grow into large and nasty varieties. Either way, Estinien and Alberic were strictly forbidden from helping. Which was for the best, Estinien told himself, as the damned dragonspawn have been getting antsy. A mission to do some mindless culling of his own would help get his mind off of  _ her. _

Nevertheless, after his mission, he found himself in the cliffs outside the Observatorium instead of back in Ishgard. He wasn’t  _ worried _ about her, she had proven herself in their spars. It has just been quite a few years since the last Azure Dragoon, Estinien himself, had been trialed and he knew there wasn’t enough manpower in the guard to cull the beasts regularly. Halone only knows how oversized the biasts may have gotten since his trial.

Estinien spotted her on her way into the pass. Her hair stood out among the blinding white of all the damned snow. The Church had expressly forbidden him from helping her kill anything, but they hadn't said anything about shadowing her. Estinien chose a perch not far from the entrance and settled in. He removed his helmet to shove it in his pack, trading it for a wineskin filled with mulled wine. The burn of alcohol would chase the chill out of his bones. She shouldn’t be long. 

\------

Seconds ticked by into minutes, minutes into an hour. Estinien was getting worried. _Where was she?_ He tapped his foot against the rock impatiently. Admittedly, she could have gotten turned around and followed the pass through, but there were only giants on the other side. She was smart enough to turn around and head back. Hopefully. Maybe she had teleported out and would come back another day to drop off the gear? _Of course!_ _Why didn’t I think of that! She’s some gods damned Eorzean hero, of course she has higher aether reserves._ She didn’t know he was out here, she had no reason to stay, especially not if she was injured and looking for aid. He emptied his wineskin. Maybe he could drown whatever this … crush was at the Forgotten Knight. Get Aymeric that drink or three he owed him.

The sun had finally dipped behind the peaks when Estinien stood. The wind whipped around him. He didn’t feel right leaving, maybe he should go check the pass, make sure she isn’t-- There. A figure with dark hair limped out from the pass’s entrance.

Estinien jumped before he really knew what he was doing, landing a few fulms from the figure in a puff of freshly fallen snow. It was her. Cassiel’s hand immediately reached for her weapon. Did she not-- ah, right. He’d worn a helmet for all of their spars. “Cassiel, ‘tis I, Estinien,” he said, stepping towards her. She froze in place, save for her heavy breathing. A splash of blood bisected her face, covering an eye. There was just an arm’s length of space between them. 

The eye not covered in blood squinted at him, as if she didn't believe him. She was almost entirely different from the demeanor she had gradually slid into during their sparring sessions, more confident, daring, amusing. Now, she was as closed off as the first time they had met, wary and unsure, like an animal cornered. Her hand moved to cover a wound on her arm again as she studied his face. “What do you want?”

Estinien reached a hand towards her, but she stepped back out of reach. “Are you okay? That is a very concerning amount of blood.”

“It’s-- it’s not all mine.” She pulled the hand away from the wound on her arm. It was covered in blood. “Some of it, yes, but not all of it.” The wind howled around them, drawing a shiver out of Cassiel. She shifted her weight and threw him an impatient look. 

Estinien leveled a flat stare back at her. "Where are you headed? It would not do for you to collapse in the snow after your hard won victory." She looked fairly spent. If she hadn’t teleported already, she probably simply  _ couldn’t _ .

Cassiel didn't answer him immediately. She stared at him for another second before averting her gaze down. "I should go to Dragonhead. However, it has been a  _ very long _ day and I don’t really have the energy for Ser Haurchefant. In truth, I was going to walk back to Gridania." Another strong gust blew past them and her mouth slanted into a grimace.

“You’re going to collapse before you make it even halfway to Gridania.” Estinien canted his head. "If I may, I know a place where we can get out of the wind.” She looked up at him, a curious expression crossing her face. “My pack holds bandages. You’d have a better chance once you aren’t bleeding out." She settled back into her usual blank slate as she nodded at him. 

There was a little cave Estinien had found years ago, during his youth, that he led her to. It was tucked away at the base of a cliff and was deep enough to escape the elements or from being seen from the outside. In all his visits to this place, he hadn't seen anything else in the cave and, thank the Fury, it was similarly unoccupied now. 

Once they got out of the wind, Cassiel sighed in relief and dropped to her knees. Estinien lowered himself to the ground next to her, removing his gauntlets and digging in his pack for a glowstick. He finally found it and cracked it, tying it up to a small hook he had installed here years ago. It gradually brightened to light the cave with an eerie blue glow. Once his eyes adjusted, he saw Cassiel dousing a scrap of cloth in water from her pack. The blood on her face had dried, gluing her eye shut, and combined with the glow stick, it looked like she had simply gotten carried away putting some war paint on.

Once she finished with her waterskin, she held her injured arm out for him. Whatever she had fought had managed to swipe just above her elbow, below any protection from her pauldron and above the armor of her gloves. It sliced through the cloth of her shirt to the skin beneath. Estinien whistled softly. "You should probably get this looked at by an actual healer. It looks deep." She watched him set her arm down, with her hand resting on his knee, so he could dig in his pack once more for his medkit. "I do have sutures, but they'll leave a nasty scar." 

He felt her shrug from the movement of her hand more than he saw it. "What's another one." Her hand left his knee and he looked up to see her unlatching the straps of her glove. Cassiel pulled it off by biting the tip of a finger, though she quickly spit it out. "Ah, fuck, bad idea, that thing is soaked in blood." 

Estinien chuckled. "What, forget already? You didn't take a knock to the head as well, did you?" That was a problem he was definitely not prepared for. “Though that may explain why you thought you could walk back to Gridania.” Cassiel rolled her eyes at him but he spied a small smirk out of the corner of his eye.

"No head injuries,  _ Ser _ ." She placed her hand back on his knee, her face once more in its usual blank expression. Her other hand held the water-soaked scrap to the eye that had been covered with the beast's lifeblood.

"Good, I am not trained to deal with them." Estinien rolled the fabric of her shirt up over her bicep. Ah, this is what she had meant. Her skin was covered in scars. Layers and layers of them. They all looked old in the way magical healing tended to leave them; faded and silvery. They caught the light and made her skin almost sparkle. In contrast, her newest wound was a gaping black ravine. Estinien took the glow stick off the hook in an attempt to get better light on it. It wasn't actively bleeding, but his first aid training told him to clean it out anyway. Especially coming from a beast, it most likely had something nasty in it that should be removed, lest infection spread. "I'm going to clean this out and it will not be pleasant." He hooked the glow stick again and reached for her waterskin that she had left between them. Cassiel just shrugged again and slouched against the wall at her back. Her arm tensed as he poured water over the wound and scrubbed it, but she stayed quiet. He grimaced each time her breath hitched.

They sat in silence for a while. Estinien focused on his task and willed himself to not fuck up the arm of Eorzea’s very esteemed  _ Warrior of Light. _ Once the scrubbing was over and the wound had dribbled some fresh new blood, Cassiel relaxed with a deep breath and started to wipe at her blood-covered eye. 

Estinien put down her arm again to get his suture supplies and found his hands shaking. He clenched them. The Azure Dragoon, scared of something as simple as this? He could face any number of dragons with nothing but ruthless killing intent, and some  _ wound cleaning _ rattled him? Maybe her silence was getting to him. She might not actually speak up if he was hurting her too much. "Cassiel, why did you laugh at me, the other day?" 

She blinked at him, one eye still covered with the cloth. "Seeing an Ishgardian curse like that and then go straight into a regal bow…" she trailed off, smiling. "I've talked to pirates who will apologize to me for their swearing after they figure out who I am. It was… refreshing, to just be your peer."

That certainly wasn't the answer he was expecting. It was a good thing she was looking at the ground, even if her smile had turned sad, as she didn't see him drop his jaw in shock. "Alberic just introduced you as the Warrior of Light, did he-- do people not know your name?" 

Cassiel sighed quietly. "Some do, probably. Most people think I'm some old hero who vanished during the Calamity. Of course, they don't actually remember anything about them, which is…" she sighed again, "frustrating." She had finally wiped enough blood off and could open her other eye. She looked at him with both. They pierced him, just as they had on that day, a few short weeks ago. "You, Estinien, have only used my name since you learned it. You haven't cared one whit for who everyone thinks I am."

He was definitely going to drown this time, in the deep blue of her eyes, wrapped up in her voice, with his heart pounding in his chest. Ishgard had been and still was separate from the rest of Eorzea, of course they didn't know of any Eorzean heroes. But that didn't matter. He could have kept calling her the Warrior of Light. He had thought about it, quite a lot, after that session. Something had changed. It felt so personal, so  _ real _ . Like she had given him a part of her. "Cassiel," He moved closer to her, until his thigh pressed against hers. She watched him. Her eyes trailed his face. "Why don't you tell them? You have such a beautiful voice." 

Her eyes snapped to his. She was still for a few moments, their breath frosted in the chilled air. When she spoke, it was a gentle whisper. “They don’t want my words. They want my lance. They want their hero to deliver them from the evils of this world. It doesn’t matter what my name is or who I am. To them, I’m as faceless as the warrior they lost. Besides,” she sighed and bowed her head, “it’s easier to move on to the next one, when their Warrior of Light can’t protect them. When their warrior dies in some gods forsaken dungeon and becomes just another number.”

The silence that followed hung heavy in the air. The Eorzeans were sending her out on what was tantamount to suicide missions and they didn’t even care to learn her name? His blood boiled. She had killed  _ gods _ for them, without complaint, and all they could see was someone else who had long since died, with no consideration for the woman actually doing their butcher missions for them.

Cassiel’s head hung low. Estinien shifted his weight, mostly to warn her, before he wrapped his arms around her. Their positioning was awkward and his drachen armor was really not built for this, but he did it anyway. Surprised, she froze at his touch before leaning into it. 

They sat like that, in the dim light of the glow stick, with the wind howling outside. Cassiel breathed deeply and deliberately. Estinien smoothed a hand over her back. He had no idea what he was doing, it had just felt like the thing to do. He didn't know how much time had passed when she spoke next. "I think I'm bleeding on you." 

Estinien dropped his arms as she sat up, his hands checking the wound he had completely forgotten about.  _ Idiot. _ It was bleeding sluggishly, a few rivulets had run down her arm. "This armor’s seen plenty, it'll be fine." At least his hands have steadied. "Are you sure you want me to suture this, I'm not exactly a--"

"Yes. I can't do it myself." 

"As you wish." He placed her arm on his leg again to get his suture supplies.  _ Don't overthink this, you  _ will  _ fuck it up if you do. _ "I have no medicines currently so, again, this will not be pleasant." He cracked another glow stick and instructed her to hold it close to her arm.

"It's par for the course, really," she mused. "If I don't get some kind of injury from you, did I actually see you at all?" 

"And what about our last training session, hm? As I recall, your only possible injury could have been a sprained laughing muscle." He threaded the suture needle and paused. "Last chance to back out." 

She huffed at him. "Get it over with already, coward. If you can't tell, I have a decently high pain tolerance." 

Estinien shrugged. "As you wish." He set to work. It'd been perhaps a bit too long since his last training on this. Dragons tended to kill. The ones who made it out usually had much deeper injuries and were first in line for magical healing. As such, he didn't use the skills much in the field. She did twitch slightly at the first few needle pokes. "You can talk, if it helps. I wasn't lying about your voice." 

She muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like "flirty bastard", but she started speaking anyway. She told him of Gridania and the forests, how the air was steeped in so much aether you could lose yourself just  _ being _ . She spoke at length about the colours of the trees and the flowers, the buildings and the people. She described the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, the neutral organization who had taken her in. They sounded like a lot of uptight scholars with no regard for her personal well being. When Estinien voiced this to her, she chuckled. "They're not all like that. Thancred's supposedly a street rat. I quite like him, though he hasn't been around much lately." 

Cassiel continued describing the Scions in detail, though the rest were just uptight scholars. Estinien tied off the stitches and examined his work. He'd tried to be extra careful to keep them neat and uniform. A few looked out of place, but it should at least heal well. He finished off her arm by tying a bandage around it, tucking the ends under for a clean, sleek bandage job.

Cassiel had paused in her descriptions at some point to watch him. "Thank you." She was smiling at him when he looked up at her. Estinien's brain stopped working. After a few seconds she giggled. "It's alright, you don't have to say you're welcome." She slouched to rest her head on her other hand, elbow supported on her leg. Her eyes closed.

Estinien's brain caught up. Right. Injured. Tired. No aether to teleport. He was still holding her arm. "As cozy as this little cave is, it is pretty fucking cold and you should not sleep out here. I can't feel my ass and I have insulating armor." 

She let out an amused huff of breath and kept her eyes closed. "I stopped feeling mine about 5 minutes after we got here. I guess begging Haurchefant for a bed won’t be as tiring now that I’m not actively bleeding. How long is the walk to Dragonhead?"

"An annoyingly long walk. We're pretty out of the way." 

She sighed heavily and took back her arm to push herself into her knees. "Of course it is." There were a few things from her pack scattered about to clean up. 

Estinien did the same, pausing when he was done to run a check on his aether. Dragonhead was the closest aetheryte, but even if she claimed to have enough energy for Haurchefant, there was no guarantee he would have an available bed for her. She wasn’t allowed in Ishgard and he doubted he could sneak her past all the guards from the aetheryte to his apartment, not with that hair of hers. That left Gridania. If he used his reserves, he could  _ probably _ get them there. However, it'd scrape his aether so thin he'd be hiking back the entire next day, even if he stayed the night. "I can get us to Gridania." The Church would  _ assuredly _ execute him if he killed her while teleporting.

“Really?” Cassiel brightened. "Oh thank you, that fight just took it all out of me. I can’t really even tell where Dragonhead is from here, I’m that tired." She could stand in the cave, being a couple heads shorter, and just brush her head against the ceiling. "I have a room at the inn in Gridania, it'll be ready." 

He'll worry about his own room after he gets her there in one piece. He nodded at her and took down the glow stick, tying it to a strap on her pack. "Ready?" he asked, holding out his hand.  _ Don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up, dont-- _

Cassiel placed her hand in his, squeezing it. She looked at him like he was her saviour, even if he was still on his knees. _ Don't fuck this up, for the love of the Fury… _

Estinien smiled at her and gathered his aether, making sure to carefully wrap it around Cassiel. In the instant before the dark nothing of teleportation whisked them away, he squeezed her hand back.

\--

The hard stone of the cave gave way to the warmer, if still hard, wood of the Gridanian aetheryte plaza. It was dark and quiet and Estinien was  _ exhausted _ . That was probably a bad decision, it’s a minor miracle he isn’t dead on the ground, let alone-- He felt a tug on his hand. Cassiel was standing next to him, looking just as she had in the caves, albeit less blue and with a worried expression on her face. “Are you okay? I thought you said you had enough aether, you should have pulled some of mine--” 

Estinien shook his head at her. “I’m fine, I just- just haven’t had a ride along in a while. I perhaps underestimated the aether it would take.” Underestimated was putting it kindly. The only reason he knew an aetheryte was here was because he could see it two feet in front of his face. Cassiel had knelt next to him and was trying to coax him to stand. He still had to get an inn room. Just the thought of moving was putting him to sleep. Maybe he would just close his eyes, just for a minute...

Something pulled on him. “I want to go to sleep, you obstinate dragoon. Get up.” Cassiel. He was doing a fine job making sure she was alive right now. Estinien sighed and stood. The ground swayed violently. That probably wasn’t good. She put a hand on his back and half pushed, half guided him down a hill. Under an arch, into a building. She exchanged some words with an Elezen who stared at him. Estinien stared back. He hoped he looked like death because that is exactly how he felt. Cassiel pushed him through a door into a hallway. They walked for a while until she stopped them. The perfectly level ground still threatened to trip him. She slung one of his arms around her shoulders and dug in her pack for something. It’s a pity he hadn’t mastered sleeping while standing yet, because he could have gotten in some decent sleep with how long this was taking her-- moving again, into the room. Cassiel pushed him into a chair. He tried to blink but his eyes did not reopen.  _ This is fine _ , he thought,  _ I can sleep in a chair _ . 

\--

A sharp pain on his ear jerked him awake from the half-doze he was in. Cassiel was standing in front of him, presumably the cause of the pain. She was poking at his armor to try and remove it. “It’s fine, leave it,” he muttered, swatting her hand away. 

“No, you are not going to bed in full armor, I don’t care how tired you are.” The hands resumed poking. 

Estinien sighed and pressed his fingers against the side of his chest to pop the first of many expertly hidden latches. He heard a soft “ah” from Cassiel, who started down the same side. He handled the ones on the other side. His gauntlets were already in his pack, taken off in the caves, and next were greaves. They too had a few hidden latches that were easily popped. Cassiel, apparently satisfied that he was doing as she wanted, stepped back to begin removing her own blood-soaked armor.

Under the chestplate, Estinien wore the standard issue shirt that insulated against the cold of Coerthas. It was too hot for Gridania. All he was doing was sitting and it was too hot. He grabbed the neck of it and pulled it over his head. It was only when the shirt was off that his brain caught up. Cassiel was stepping out of her pants and was currently just in her underclothes. His face caught fire  _ immediately _ , because of course it had to betray him. She had a lot of scars under the clothes, though her arms were still the most heavily marked. Her torso had a few larger ones, including what looked like shrapnel marks stretching around to her back, and her thigh sported a wicked scar that had been torn from her hip to the front of her knee. 

“I told you I have a high pain tolerance.” Oh, she had  _ noticed _ him looking at her. Estinien blushed even more, if that was at all possible. Cassiel giggled. “Your ears turn a very lovely shade of red.” He threw his shirt at her in response. Her next laugh was broken by a yawn. "Come on," she took one of his hands. "I thought I was tired but you look like you're going to die if you don't lay down." 

Every muscle in his body groaned when he stood. She led him over to the bed that was tucked in the corner. He stood in front of it stupidly, as his brain ground to a standstill again. Why was it so hard to  _ think _ ?

Cassiel didn't wait very long before she pushed him into the bed. “Gods, just get in the damn bed, Estinien.  _ I _ will sleep in the chair.” The sheets were cool and soft. He blinked again and had to force his eyes open. Cassiel had turned away. Without thinking, he reached out and grabbed her hand. 

“Stay,” he heard himself say. “I was supposed to be helping you, the least I can do now is share the bed.”

She laughed softly. “How kind of you, Ser Knight.” She still left anyway. Estinien blinked. When his eyes opened again, the room was dark and Cassiel was settling into the bed. She kissed his cheek but he was too exhausted to react this time. “Sleep well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's the opposite of a slow burn? A fast burn? A wildfire? This relationship is it, whatever it is.
> 
> Find me on Twitter [@_Raleighen](https://twitter.com/_Raleighen)


End file.
